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Taiwan machine tool prices: the yen has given back five per cent since July, and what that does to two quotes on a Taxila desk
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#Taiwan machine tool exports#TAMI#machine tool prices 2026#CNC machine lead times#Taiwan vs Japan machine tools#China machine tool export controls#reshaped-v2

Taiwan machine tool prices: the yen has given back five per cent since July, and what that does to two quotes on a Taxila desk

Sadaf Masood

Two quotes on a desk in Taxila for the same class of machine, a 3-axis vertical machining centre with a metre of table. One is from Taichung, in dollars. One is from Japan, in yen. Both were requested in June, both say they are valid for thirty days, and one of them has moved five per cent since it was written without anyone in Japan touching a price list.

The news underneath is Taiwan's August export figure: US$169 million of machine tools, 4.6 per cent below a year earlier, in a month when the rest of Taiwanese machinery shipped US$3.446 billion, up 19 per cent. At the 10 September press conference TAMI's chairman, Chuang Ta-li, blamed currency: since 2021 the New Taiwan dollar has lost 11.7 per cent against the US dollar, the yen 51.2 per cent, the won 24.8 per cent. And the association's July report carries the line the trade press has quoted all week, on Taiwan's old 20 to 30 per cent price advantage under Japanese machines:

"has completely disappeared" — Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry, July 2026 industry report

It was true at the exchange rate it was written against. On 1 July the dollar bought 162.7 yen. On 11 September it bought 154.0, by the ECB reference rate. That is a yen five and a half per cent stronger in ten weeks, and by 9 September Taiwanese business television was running the opposite story: the yen at 153, Taiwanese quotes competitive again, orders up. August's customs figure was priced in the spring. The quote on your desk is priced now.

A machinist at the control of a Taiwanese machining centre, with the USTV caption that the yen's rise puts Taiwan's machine-tool makers in the front row of beneficiaries
From 看見153字頭了!日圓"升"勢明朗 台灣工具機報價添競爭力 加上AI擴產潮助攻 接單顯著增加｜非凡財經新聞｜20260909 by USTV 非凡電視, 9 September: the yen at 153, Taiwanese quotes "adding competitiveness".

What five per cent is on a real machine

US$89,271.

That is the average customs value of a Taiwanese machining centre exported from January to July, US$322.5 million across 3,613 machines, by TAMI's own table. Five per cent of it is about US$4,500, which is the gap TAMI said had vanished, coming back one fixing at a time. To India, the market next door, the average was US$65,628 across 459 machines, and India is the only large market in the table where both units and value rose. That Indian figure is the number to carry into a negotiation, because it is what the same builders accept for the same class of vertical from a buyer paying the same freight.

The Japanese builder could absorb the five per cent, and will not. After seventeen months of orders above ¥120 billion a month, as this site set out on 9 September, the constraint on a Japanese quote is the order book, not the margin, and a builder with a full book holds price and stretches delivery rather than discounting. So the parity TAMI described in July is turning back into the older shape: Taiwanese cheaper and sooner, Japanese dearer and later. Slowly. But turning.

Practical Machinist's TMTS 2026 show-floor episode title frame, Taichung
From The Wildest Machines We Saw at TMTS 2026 | Machine Shop Talk Ep.152 by Practical Machinist. The machines on that floor in March are the 3,613.

The third quote, if there is one, is Chinese, and the July report is blunt: in markets that "do not demand much of the equipment", Taiwanese machines "have no competitive advantage" against Chinese ones. What changed on the Chinese quote this year is not price. From 30 June, in TAMI's description, the mainland requires prior declaration and approval before exporting high-precision and dual-use machine tools. A standard 3-axis vertical is unlikely to be caught. A 5-axis or a precision grinder is a line on the RFQ, who files, how long, what happens to the deposit if approval is refused, and the Taiwanese and Japanese quotes do not carry that line.

The FFG group stand at TMTS 2026 in Taichung, with the show dates 25 to 28 March 2026 on the display
From FFG at TMTS 2026 - Taichung, Taiwan by FFG Americas. FFG owns builders in Taiwan, Japan, Germany and the United States; on its stand the currency argument is internal.

Two dates, and my number for each

TAMI publishes September's export figure at its October press conference, around the middle of the month. I expect it still negative, between minus 2 and minus 8 per cent year on year, because a currency move in August does not reach a customs declaration until the machine ships, and September's machines were priced in spring. I also expect 2026 as a whole to finish one to four per cent under 2025. If September prints positive, the yen is doing more work than I think and I will say so.

The second date is TIMTOS, 2 to 6 March 2027 at Taipei Nangang. If the dollar is near 150 yen when the doors open, I expect a Taiwanese quote on a standard 3-axis vertical for a Pakistani buyer to sit about ten per cent under the equivalent Japanese quote, with delivery two to three months shorter, and I expect TAMI to have stopped saying the gap has disappeared. Above 160 yen, none of that happens and this paragraph was wrong. The chain is short: the gap is a currency gap, the currency has already given back a fifth of it since July, and nothing in the Japanese order book lets a Japanese builder chase it.

TIMTOS 2027 teaser frame: visitors examining a device at a stand in the Taipei Nangang exhibition hall
From TIMTOS 2027 Teaser｜Smart Manufacturing for the Future by TIMTOS 台北國際工具機展. 2 to 6 March 2027, the date the prediction above is due.

What to do with the quotes this week. Ask the Taiwanese builder to date the exchange rate its dollar price assumes and to hold it for ninety days; its costs are in NT dollars, which have barely moved, so it has room it is not offering. Ask the Japanese builder for the same machine in yen and in dollars and compare the two at today's fixing; if the dollar figure is the yen figure at 162, you have found your five per cent. And if the machine is 5-axis and the quote is Chinese, put the 30 June approval step into the delivery clause, deposit refundable if approval fails.

Group photograph of Chevalier staff and visitors on the Falcon Machine Tools stand at TMTS 2026
From 【CHEVALIER】TMTS 2026 & ChevalierOpenHouse│Exhibition Recap 展覽回顧 by FALCON MACHINE TOOLS CO., LTD. 福裕事業股份有限公司. Grinders are the one Taiwanese line still growing, up 6.2 per cent to July.

If it is a part you need rather than a machine, the currency argument is ours to have with the factories. Send Vesprr Workshop the drawing, the quantity and the tolerance class, and the quote comes back in rupees with a validity date on it.

TMTS 2026 highlights frame: visitors on a factory tour in Taichung, captioned Showroom-to-Factory Experiences
From TMTS 2026 Highlights｜Taiwan International Machine Tool Show 台灣國際工具機展 by TMTS 2026 台灣國際工具機展. The show sells factory visits because the plant is the argument the currency cannot make.

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